Анджей Сапковский - Lesser Evil

"You're wrong. Aridea was more interested in the fate of her country.

And when asked, the Looking-Glass divined a nasty death of Aridea herself, and of plenty of people, either from the hand or Fredefalk's daughter from his first wife or due to her doings. Aridea did her best to spread the news to the Council, and the Council sent me to Creyden. I do not have to mention that Fredefalk's firstborn was born shortly after the eclipse. I watched her secretly for a short time. In the meantime she managed to tortured to death a canary and two puppies; she also plucked out her handmaid's eye with the handle of a comb. I made a few tests with my spells, and most of them confirmed that she was a mutant. I went to tell that to Aridea, as Fredefalk was too much infatuated with his daughter.

Aridea, as I have mentioned, was quite a wise woman…"

"Sure," Geralt interrupted again. "She can't have been too fond of her step-daughter. She'd rather her own children inherited the throne. I can guess what followed. Why was there nobody to break her neck. And by the way, yours as well."

Stregobor Sighed, raised his eyes to heaven, where the picturesque rainbow was still glimmering with its many colours.

"I was in favour of isolating her only, by the duke's wife was of different opinion. She sent the little one to the forest with a hired thug: her Master of the Hunt. We found him later in the shrubs. He wasn't wearing any trousers, so it wasn't too difficult to guess what happened.

She shoved the pin of her brooch into his brain through the ear. Most probably when he had his attention turned to something else."

"If you think I pity him," Geralt muttered. "You're mistaken."

"We made a comb-out," Stregobor continued. "But we lost trace of her.

And I had to hurry away from Creyden, as Fredefalk began suspecting something. Only four years later I had news from Aridea. She spied the little one who was living in Mahakam with seven gnomes, whom she convinced that it paid better to waylay merchants than to chance their lungs to anthracosis in the mines. She's commonly called the Shrike, as she's been particularly partial to impaling those she caught alive on sharpened poles. Aridea hired a few assassins, but none of them returned. Then it was difficult to find anyone willing to: the little one was quite famous.

She learned her sword so well that not many a man could face her. Having been summoned to Creyden, I arrived there in secrecy only to learn that Aridea had been poisoned. Fredefalk himself was commonly believed to have done so, as he had sought a younger and a fleshier msalliance for himself, but t seems to me it was Renfri."

"Renfri?"

"That's what she called herself. I told you, she had poisoned Aridea.

Shortly afterwards Duke Fredefalk died in a strange accident while hunting, and Aridea's eldest son was lost without a trace. Those must have been the dealings of the little one as well. I call her 'little one', yet she was seventeen at that time. And she was well developed.

"At that time," the sorcerer continued after a while's break. "She and her gnomes were a true terror of the whole Mahakam. Yet, one day they quarrelled over something, I don't know what that was about, whether it was sharing the loot, or taking turns during the nights of the week — enough to say they butchered each other with their knives. The seven gnomes failed to survive this knife business. Only the Shrike did. And she alone. But at that time, I was already in the vicinity. We met eye to eye: she recognised me in an instant and realised what role I played then in Creyden. I'm telling you, Geralt, I hardly had time to say the words of the spell, and my hands were trembling as anything, when that wild vixen was running at me with her sword. I wrapped her in a neat block of rhinestone: six ells by nine. When she became lethargic, I dropped the block into the gnomes' mine and caved the shaft in.

"A botch," Geralt commented. "That could be disspelled. Couldn't you incinerate her to cinder? You know so many well-suited spells."

"Not me. Not my speciality. But you are right. I botched. An idiot of a prince found her and spent a fortune for a counterspell, he brought her back and triumphantly carried her home, to some god-forgotten kingdom of the east. His father, an old brigand, turned out to be more sensible. He gave his son a thrashing, and decided to interrogate the Shrike. He asked her about the treasures she had come by together with the gnomes and hidden deviously. The king's mistake was that when she — stark-naked — was stretched on the executioner's bench, he was assisted by his eldest son.

It somehow happened that the very next day that son of his, already an orphan bereft of all the siblings, ruled the kingdom, and the Shrike took the post of the first pet.

"Which means she's not that ugly."

"The question of taste. She wasn't a pet long. Until the first palace revolution, as they pompously called it, as their palace seemed more like a cow-shed. It soon turned out that she did not forget about me either. In Kovir she had three assassins hired to kill me. I decided not to risk and wait until all was over in Pontar. She found me again. That time I escaped to Angren, but she found me even there. I don't know how she does it, as I mask my trail well and leave no tracks. It must be a feature of her mutation."

"What hindered or prevented you from repeating your crystal spell?

Remorse?"

"No. I had no such thing. It turned out that she became immune to magic."

"This can't be."

"It is. It is enough to posses an appropriate artefact or aura. Yet, this may again be caused by her mutation, which is progressing. I fled from Angren and I hid myself here in the Baycoves, in Blaviken. I had a year's rest, yet she tracked me again."

"Where do you know it from? Is she already in the town?"

"Yes. I've seen her in the crystal." The sorcerer raised his wand.

"She is not alone. She's leading a gang, which means that she's preparing something grave. Geralt, I have nowhere to run, and I know of no place where I could hide. Yes. The fact that you arrived here in this very moment, cannot be a coincidence. It's destiny.

The hexer raised his brows.

"What do you mean?"

"It's natural, isn't it? You'll kill her."

"I'm not a hired thug, Stregobor."

"You're not a thug. True."

"It is monsters that I kill for money. Beasts threatening people.

Abominations summoned by magic and spells of the likes of you. Not humans."

"She is not a human. Verily, she is a monster, a mutant, a cursed freak. You brought your kikimore here. The Shrike is worse than a kikimore. A kikimore kills because it is hungry, the Shrike for pleasure.

Kill her, and I will pay you any sum you name. Reason is the limit, it is to be understood."

"I told you I believe all this thing about the mutation and curse of Lilith to be rubbish. The girl has her reasons to pick a bone or two with you, and I will not meddle. Turn to the riff, to the magistrates. You are the local sorcerer, you are protected by the local law.

"I'm spitting on law, on the riff and his aid!" Stregobor exclaimed.

"I need no defence. I want you to kill her! No one will enter this tower.

I'm fully safe here. But what good is it? I don't intend to stay here until the end of my days. The Shrike will not give up as long as I am alive, I know that. Am I to stay in this tower and await death?"

"They stayed. You know what, magician? You should have left hunting the girls to other, more potent sorcerers, you should have foresee the consequences."

"Please, Geralt."

"No, Stregobor."

The sorcerer remained silent. The un-true sun on the un-true skies moved towards the zenith, but the hexer knew that it was already dusk in Blaviken. He felt hungry.